An eyewitness who visited the offices of the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute in Ramallah described a scene of devastation there.

"All the computers in the office have been thrown into one big pile at the entrance; desks and chairs are broken and scattered on top of each other," wrote Patricia Smith in a report for a Palestinian NGO.

"The computer hard-drives have been taken out and the server is gone, together with all the printers and fax machines."

'Extremely painful'

Rebuilding the computer network is going to take time and money. Many of the fledgling websites of the Palestinian Authority had been funded by international donors.

Wired Palestinians

12,000 people use the net (1%)

3.9 % of households have a computer

33,867 computers in West Bank and Gaza

US$10-15 per month for dial-up access

Source: Dr Saidam, June 2001 report

The EU, US and even China had helped to pay for the equipment and facilities destroyed in the recent violence.

"There were hopes of building on the peace that existed in the last seven years," said Dr Saidam.

"Sadly, all this seems to have collapsed. All these dreams seem to have been dashed.

"It has been extremely painful to see everything you have worked on being demolished before your own eyes," he said.

For activists, the damage has been done to limit the ability of Palestinians to use the net to spread information about events on the ground.

"These days much of the Palestinian advocacy takes place on the internet. This relies not so much on websites but on e-mail from the ground," said Nigel Parry of the US-based ElectronicIntifada.